


in defense of: danganronpa edition

by mouse_was_taken



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27430123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mouse_was_taken/pseuds/mouse_was_taken
Summary: a series of (likely short) essays defending some hated (and perhaps not so hated?) danganronpa characters. this is not me condoning their actions, just attempting to highlight the good aspects of them. defending the defenseless, if you will.-read the tags for characters; more will be added as more essays are written-
Comments: 14
Kudos: 25





	1. One - Teruteru Hanamura

**Author's Note:**

> You'll notice towards the end of this analysis/essay that I apologize for my poor structure, but I'd like to also do it in advance. This one is very ramble-y, and as objective as I tried to be, I feel there might be a bit of a bias in Mr Hanamura's favour. It is the first chapter though, and I plan to improve as I write more. Nevertheless, with all its flaws, I do hope you take something away from this, even if it's just that you REALLY don't like Teruteru.

**in defense of teruteru**  
Teruteru Hanamura, the Ultimate Cook - or, as he prefers to be called, the Ultimate Chef - is one of the most hated Danganronpa characters, and for good reason. He’s creepy, he’s weird, and he’s really full of himself. Sort of. But that’s not all there is to his character, and while I don’t necessarily expect to change anyone’s opinion with this...analysis, one could call it, I do hope that a new perspective is at least considered. So if you are one of the many who hate him, I won’t blame you, but at least now you can see why there are others, such as myself, who appreciate him greatly  
A quick disclaimer - there will be spoilers to chapter one of _Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair_ and a slight theme of murder/death, so if you would like to avoid spoilers, I’d advise you skip this particular installment. Now, without further ado, the defending.  
I’m not quite sure when my fascination with Teruteru started, but it lasted throughout the entire game and well past it - to this day, he is tied for my favourite Danganronpa character of all time (the other being Byakuya Togami, but he’s a topic for another defense). I don’t know what it is that made me like him so much; we’re complete opposites in every sense of the word, down to even small physical details. In any case, this appreciation of his character made me want to look into him some more, and I discovered that while there is indeed much about him to abhor, there are things that make him at least a decent person and an ultimately (pun not intended) incredible friend.  
Teruteru is mostly known amongst the Danganronpa community as a creep, which makes sense because he is, in fact, _very_ creepy. Where exactly his lewd nature originates is mostly speculation, as the official wiki doesn’t go into much detail about his childhood, and it’s not mentioned often in the anime or the game. As for the manga, I can’t say for certain as I haven’t read it, but I’d assume it would be somewhere on the wiki if that were the case - aside from the wiki, I’ve also tried to do my own research, and I haven’t found much. So his childhood remains, for the most part, a mystery to me. If you have any official information about it though, I’d love to hear it in the comments. All this to say, people are absolutely justified in thinking that he’s a creep. _I_ think he’s a creep. It does frustrate me, however, when people reduce his character to just and only that - a creep - when there are so many positive aspects to him, such as his kindness, diligence, or generosity.  
Teruteru is shown to be a genuinely compassionate person through multiple canonical interactions, although I’ll be focusing on the ones from the game. Perhaps the most obvious and well-known of these is his relationship with his mother, revealed in the first class trial. We can see that Teruteru loves his mother dearly, and worries about going to Hope’s Peak at the risk of her leaving her to run the Hanamura Diner alone in her poor health. Despite being ashamed of his poor upbringing, Teruteru is not in any way ashamed of his momma and speaks highly of her often. Furthermore, according to the wiki, in the original Japanese version of Super Danganronpa 2, _“Teruteru refers to his mother as お母ちゃん (Okā-chan) rather than お母さん (Okā-san), which is considered the most proper way for one to directly call his own mother or refer to another person's mother in Japanese. Using the '-chan' honorific instead of '-san' emphasizes the deep affection Teruteru has for his mother”._ Teruteru’s mother is one person that he truly respects, and his concern for her well-being as he went to Hope’s Peak and his wanting to know how she was doing before he died just shows his caring nature.  
Some other examples of his kindness include his willingness to cook Hajime Hinata some food that he enjoys, or to reassure Hajime of his worth by telling him “there aren’t many people as talented as [he is],” and not to “take [himself] for granted.” Teruteru also claims that he spoiled the rest of the students on the trip by cooking so much for them. Lastly, Teruteru confesses to Hajime that his true reason for cooking was not fame or money, but rather, quote, “for the sake of making the person most important to [him]...smile.” He could be referring to his mother with this statement, as they bonded over their shared love of cooking, but it nonetheless serves as perhaps the best example of how supporting people he cares about is such an important value of his.  
Teruteru has also been shown to be hardworking and determined. Aside from cooking all the food for Byakuya’s party during the killing school trip, he’s also helped his mother run the Hanamura Diner and even went so far as to enter a cooking competition (referred to by him as a “cooking death match”) to keep bigger companies from buying their restaurant out. His aspiration is to cook well but not necessarily to make the most money off of it, since he seems concerned for his two younger siblings who make one hundred million dollars annually (as the potential Ultimate Male and Female Escorts, despite being underage) although it seems he could easily make as much or close with his cooking skill. He’s also probably jealous of them, although Hajime couldn’t tell which it was - concern for their safety, being children or jealousy that they were younger and yet far more successful. It was likely a combination of both. Teruteru was ambitious, wanting to become a great chef to save the Hanamura Diner after he graduated from Hope's Peak. He works hard to cook for all his friends and to figure out what it is that they enjoy so that he can make more of it. Also, despite secretly preferring simple foods like the kind his momma made, he has put a lot of time and effort into making complex and advanced dishes, likely thinking they’d seem the most impressive. He appears to be deeply ashamed of the fact that he had a poor childhood and lived in rural Japan, and tries to overcompensate for this insecurity by coming off as confident as possible, sometimes to the point of perceived narcissism. He refers to himself as a “world-class” chef on more than one occasion, asks to be called “Ultimate Chef” rather than “Ultimate Cook” because, quote, “it has more of a big-city flavour to it”, and even when he reverts back to his natural and almost unintelligible accent, he claims that he was born in Azabu and raised in South Aoyama, both areas of Japan known to be rich and prosperous. Still, despite his apparently cocky attitude, Teruteru is also notably selfless. His devotion to always cooking for his friends, and his accidental murder of Twogami (how ‘Byakuya Togami’ is referred to in the second game) prove this. Teruteru didn’t intend to kill anyone at first, but when Nagito Komaeda revealed that he planned to start the killing game one way or another, Teruteru planned to prevent any of his friends from getting hurt by killing the killer, so to speak. And, in the last moments before his execution, his final wish was to know what had become of his mother and the diner - and when Monokuma denies his request, he cries out for her in a scream so full of fear and despair I can’t help but feel so sad whenever I hear it. It shows how he really wasn't just thinking of himself, even as he was about to die. It’s very possible that in his last seconds of consciousness, he was thinking of his momma. Of course, that last bit is just speculation, but even so, it would make sense, given what we know about Teruteru, wouldn’t it?  
Here I want to make it crystal clear that me defending Teruteru’s character is not in _any_ way me condoning his actions. No matter the intent, murder is murder, and being a secretly nice person doesn’t excuse being a perverted harasser, either. I just wanted to start this (potential?) series off with a character I appreciate, so Teruteru it is. If this didn’t do anything to improve your opinion of him in the slightest, I understand, and I thank you for reading thus far. Hopefully now, though, it’s a little clearer why, while he’s not necessarily a good person, he’s not an irredeemable one, either.  
If there are any characters you want defenses for, comment them and I’ll be sure to take them into consideration! I apologize for the poor structure of this essay in particular; I wrote most of it on a whim after getting out of a shower and deciding Teruteru deserved better. But next chapter, I’m sure I’ll do better.  
If you’re still here, well, thanks for reading to the end. That’s the conclusion of this defense for now, so, as Teruteru would say, _ciao~_


	2. Two - Korekiyo Shinguji

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used... quite a few commas in this essay. Good lord.

**in defense of korekiyo**  
Korekiyo Shinguji, also called Kiyo, is the Ultimate Anthropologist. At first, he may come off as calculated, reserved, and to many, rather creepy. But as the Danganronpa story progresses, one finds that there are, in fact, much more than just ‘creepy’ qualities to him. His true aims are much more sinister than just becoming an anthropologist…  
I would like to add a disclaimer here that this chapter will contain _major_ spoilers to **ALL** of _Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony_ , as well as themes of incest, abuse, and much more prominent themes of death and murder than the last chapter. If any of these things could potentially upset you, it would be a good idea to leave now. Reader discretion is advised. Now that that’s out of the way...the defense.

I’ve observed that many people were creeped out by Korekiyo before they even knew much about him, and I wonder why that is, as I was always drawn to his character. Was it the low voice? The archaic manner of speaking? The fact that every inch of his body aside from his eyes is covered? Whatever the case, I liked him from the moment I saw him (although, I confess, that may be due in part to the fact that Todd Haberkorn is one of my favourite English voice actors, but I digress). I was even less surprised to see Kiyo hate than I was to see Teruteru hate after the third trial - he is just...objectively worse. Perhaps my most obvious and convenient defense for Korekiyo is the fact that all the things that make him such a bad person could be fake. Since it was revealed in the end of Danganronpa V3 that all of the characters’ backstories were fabricated, everything we know about Kiyo’s past could be falsehood. But, since we also don’t know just how much of it is true and how much isn’t, I’m going to write this as though it is known for certain that all of it is true. Besides, it wouldn’t be much of a defense otherwise.

From what we know about Kiyo, he is very calm, even, and willing to teach. Though he does seem fairly quiet and reserved, it appears he’s not afraid to speak his mind if there is information he believes ought to be shared. He is very thoughtful, although the things he says can be noticeably morbid or questionable. It does not appear as though he seems very concerned with the others’ perceptions of him, although he insists they have no reason to fear him. He’s also very intelligent, contributing valuable evidence and reasoning to the first and second class trials and planning what, at the time, looked to be a locked-room murder before the third. To emphasize some of the better aspects of Kiyo’s character, he has been shown to be a decently friendly person, even despite his later actions and rather unsettling vibe.

In his free time events, he attempts to connect his talent in anthropology to Kaede Akamatsu’s talent in playing piano by asking her about music and teaching her about the meanings behind some children’s nursery rhymes. In his final FTE with Kaede as the protagonist, he tells her how he admires her hope and determination and asks if she’d like to become friends with his sister, as well as himself. In his FTE’s with Shuichi Saihara as the protagonist, he seems eager and willing to teach Shuichi about the wonders of anthropology, saying that he “will speak of it for as long as [Shuichi] wishes to hear of it.” Kiyo tells Shuichi that the latter is a good person, as well. In his final FTE, he expresses that he considers Shuichi a friend and that it would make him very happy if they could travel the country together, Shuichi as Kiyo’s disciple. When Shuichi accepts, Kiyo says it makes him very happy to hear that. Shuichi notes that Kiyo’s eyes are “gentle and kind”, and muses that despite his first impression of Kiyo being that he was creepy, there is now a real bond between them. Before Kiyo’s execution, he calls all the remaining students his friends and says that he’ll be watching over them in the afterlife. He also seems to be fairly patient with people, keeping his cool-headed tone for most of his interactions with them. However, when peeved, he can react rather...drastically, usually asking or threatening to tear out their nerves, similarly to how Maki Harukawa, the Ultimate Assassin, has a habit of asking people if they want to die (implying that she’d be the one to kill them). Still, at least from his interactions with Shuichi (excluding Hotel Kumasutra), he is a thoughtful, observant, and caring person, even if his manner of showing it is unconventional or strange.

Now, to address the elephant in the room - Sister. Korekiyo has a deep love for his sister, past the point of familial admiration and into incestuous territory. Far, _far_ into incestuous territory. But I truly think Kiyo was a victim of circumstance. This next bit is mostly theories and speculation, but I’ll do my best to base it in as much evidence as possible. From what I can tell, Kiyo was likely abused by his sister. Without an official confirmation, this may sound like a stretch, but hear me out - when Kiyo speaks of his relationship with Sister, it’s only ever from her perspective, and he seems to do whatever she asks (in her ‘tulpa’ form, of course) without question or judgement. During Kiyo’s fieldwork, he was attacked by a group of locals and tortured nearly to death, causing him to hallucinate and see his sister. This led Kiyo to develop a split personality of Sister, likely as a result of PTSD as well, which could be a part of an explanation for his panic attacks (which he has according to the wiki) under particularly stressful situations, such as, for instance, being accused of murder, although, of course, we can’t go off of that alone. When Kiyo’s sister supposedly speaks through him, she comes off as passive aggressive and perhaps even hostile, and more so than Kiyo. Even though she acted this way, Kiyo still listened to her unquestioningly. I suppose it could be argued that the version of Sister that Kiyo talks to as a coping mechanism is the more idealized version, the perfect sister that Kiyo saw her as. But even so, she seems to be a bit mean-spirited, degrading the other students and speaking in such a way to Kiyo, implying that, using that line of thinking, she was much worse to Korekiyo when she was alive. It’s possible that Sister did not love Kiyo at all, but took advantage of him often which made him think that they were romantically involved. She could have very well manipulated him into thinking they were in love as a way to get what she wanted from him. 

Furthermore, aside from all this theory, it seems as though Sister controls every aspect of Kiyo’s life, which can not be healthy regardless of whether she actually abused him, although it would make sense he acts this way if she had. She made him a special uniform, which he treasures, but she made it because she did not like the other uniform he wore. All of the things Korekiyo does are influenced by sister, from his clothes, to his hair, his ultimate, to the hours he spends getting ready in the morning, and his murderous spree. If Kiyo’s sister never truly loved him to begin with, it would also explain why Sister aided Monokuma in salting Kiyo’s ghost during his execution, which is essentially to exorcise it, although according to the wiki, Kodaka says it’s ambiguous whether it was actually Sister or a fake controlled by Monokuma. Regardless, Korekiyo’s situation is not a simple one, and though of course this does not excuse the murder of, according to him, close to one hundred girls, it may provide an understandable and maybe even sympathetic explanation. After all, despite them being siblings, he still really believed he loved Sister, and her betrayal in the end clearly hurt him - it didn’t seem as if he truly feared death because he knew he would be able to see Sister again, and you can see the despair on his face as she laughs wickedly, banishing his spirit. So, again, not to say that Korekiyo is in any way justified for doing the things he’s done, just that there are reasons he did them that might make him the slightest bit more sympathetic as a character. He really does read like an abuse victim to me, and it seems that years of untreated mental illness from his past traumas, possibly involving his sister, have led to genuine insanity. 

Korekiyo is much more difficult to defend than Teruteru, since his personality isn’t as obvious. Teruteru comes off as much more extroverted and open, so I have more interactions to draw from. When demonstrating Kiyo’s nature, I really only have his FTE and Love Across the Universe events to go off of, and how he treats one person (Shuichi, in this case) isn’t necessarily indicative of how he treats everyone else. Also, his morals are clearly very skewed. After the killing game has been announced, he wonders aloud why everyone is so against killing, since “[he knows] it to be against the law. But laws are simple rules people decided upon. This is a space removed from those rules. Therefore, [the students have] no need to follow them." However, I truly do think that, as morbid and morally questionable as he is, were he not obsessed with his sister, he could have been a very loyal and caring friend, although it’s hard to see. It’s obvious he enjoys teaching and learning, and he seems very willing to engage in profound and intellectual discussion. He also seems decently open-minded, at least enough to entertain others’ ideas and thoughts without necessarily believing or agreeing with them. If a little odd, he wouldn’t be a bad person were it not for his unfortunate situation as an incestuous serial killer who uses the words ‘sister’ and ‘lover’ interchangeably…

Korekiyo is such a haunting character, and I have very mixed feelings on him and the third class trial. I feel like, as cool and complex as he is, he certainly could have been handled better, but I also think that what we got was someone who, at least, was interesting. His execution always stuck with me...the way his mask is made with the zipper/slit makes it seem as if he always has this perpetually serene smile on his face. The fact that, in some of his more distressed sprites, this zipper thing looks slightly downturned makes it seem more so. I bring this up to say that, since he keeps the mask on during his execution, it looks like he is smiling slightly. Though from his furrowed brows and despairing eyes, it would be reasonable to assume that he is not, but knowing what we know about his character, as well as the knowledge that the myth that resonates with him most is the myth of Medusa because of the theme that we cannot escape death, it also wouldn’t be far out of the realm of believability to assume that he is. At the risk of sounding a bit like the character in question, there’s a sort of tragic beauty in such a ready acceptance of the loss of one’s own life. And when Sister and Monokuma gleefully threw salt on his ghost, his expression of despair was absolutely one that stuck with me. I do wish he could have been developed more, because despite not being the best of _people,_ he could have been such an amazing _character_ and I personally would have loved to see more of him.

But that’s about the best defense I can do. The glaring issue with Kiyo is his obsession with his sister, and there is really no way to excuse that or explain it away, but I’ve done my absolute best to use what I know in a way that makes sense to make his character seem just a bit more human. If I’ve missed anything or gotten anything wrong, please do call me out in the comments. And so, it seems this would be the end of this analysis.


	3. Three - Sayaka Maizono

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be completed and uploaded at the beginning of this week, but school is annoying. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

**in defense of sayaka**  
Sayaka Maizono - the Ultimate Pop Sensation - is a character I am completely neutral about. I don’t hate her, I don’t love her; My opinion of her lies somewhere in the middle. However, I wasn’t at all expecting the amount of hate that she got for her character, considering the circumstances. In fanfictions, fanganronpas, and even just in everyday Danganronpa related posts and such, I see her villainized and hated on, and I’ve always wondered why. So today, she is my topic of defense.  
An obligatory warning - this chapter will contain spoilers for _Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc_ and slight themes of murder and death. Now then - the actual defending.

One’s first impression of the Ultimate Pop Sensation may be that she is kind and perhaps a bit coy. When she first meets Makoto Naegi, she is very polite towards him, expressing that she looks forward to getting to know him. Also, Makoto’s positive descriptions of her may make her come off as better to the player, since he says she is beautiful like a doll and has a pleasant smell he can’t quite place. In Sayaka’s first Free Time Event, she tells Makoto that she’s glad he is there with her, and that she knows she can count on him. Her interactions with Makoto are friendly and relaxed, as if they had known each other for years. In a way, they have, as they went to middle school together, although they didn’t really know each other very well while they were there. Since the player is seeing everything through Makoto’s eyes, it’s very possible that their relationship was handled this way to cause even more shock or despair (or both) when Sayaka’s body was discovered. After all, we’ve been given a character, set up to look like the deuteragonist, described in such an overwhelmingly positive way, who ends up being the first one to die. When it’s revealed that she intended to frame Makoto, it’s understandable that the player would feel personally betrayed and develop a negative opinion of Sayaka. However, I’ve seen the word “snake” used to describe Sayaka on more than one occasion, and while it’s true that she very well may have been conniving from the start, I sincerely doubt that this is the case and further doubt the idea that she ever really intended much harm to come to Makoto.

One thing that is necessary to understand about Sayaka Maizono is her devotion to her idol groupmates. She is willing to do _anything_ for her groupmates and career, even things that could potentially hurt herself and other people. The situation of being in a killing game is already an insanely intense amount of stress for anyone to be under, especially a bunch of high school students (or rather, people that believed they were high school students), but the first motive video was likely what pushed Sayaka over the edge, so to speak, and caused her to start devising a plan to kill Leon Kuwata and frame Makoto. In the wiki, it is mentioned that Sayaka has made many sacrifices and done some “bad things” to achieve her goal to become an idol, possibly including the idol photobook that she posed for in revealing clothing, which was later traded to Teruteru Hanamura by Nagito Komaeda. 

...Big surprise there. But I digress.

The motives are intended to be, well, motivators, and there’s no telling who else would have acted on theirs had Sayaka not died first. It’s easy to blame the students for being awful people, but it’s important to keep in mind that none of us have been in the same situation, and, were we in such a situation, though we may not want to admit it, it’s entirely possible that we, too, could succumb under the pressure and snap. Sayaka’s circumstances were unique and even though she has done bad things to achieve her goals, I doubt murder is just one of the things she has in mind ordinarily.

Aside from the unfortunate circumstances, it is heavily implied that Sayaka had romantic feelings for Makoto. I don't think she truly wanted to hurt him. In one of her FTE’s, she says that she can’t focus on pursuing the person she’s interested in (and may or may not be referring to Makoto) because she wants to get out first, which could mean that she planned to frame him from the beginning or had no qualms about doing so later, but there is another reason I don’t think Sayaka is the evil snake she’s oft made out to be - she didn’t know all the rules of the game. The only things she knew were that she had to kill someone and if she got away with it, she’d get to leave. The assumption here is that she’d get to graduate, and the rest of the students would have to stay behind and kill. She had no clue that if her plan succeeded and no one suspected her that everyone else, including Makoto, would be killed. For someone who has played or watched all thirty-some hours of Trigger Happy Havoc, this is an easy detail to forget, since the rest of the game is centered around the trials and executions. But it’s an important one to keep in mind - Sayaka, though she had to have known that what she was doing was wrong, was completely and blissfully unaware of all the consequences it would reap. Not to mention the fact that she could have just killed Makoto herself. She had all the means to do so, especially after Makoto promised to her that he’d do anything if it meant helping her escape. He, although (potentially) inadvertently, offered himself for Sayaka to kill if it meant she could leave. It’s not as though it would have been difficult to set up, either, because of how much Makoto trusted her. There was no need for her to come up with such an elaborate plan to _frame_ Makoto had she wanted to kill or harm him, directly or otherwise. I think her plan was just to get out of the school, not to hurt Makoto - in fact, it’s possible that she framed Makoto, specifically, _because_ he had, if accidentally, consented to it, although we can’t know that for sure.

Then there’s the matter of the famed writing on the wall, 11037. Even though in the game, they were unsure whether Sayaka left that message there to help Makoto or get revenge on Leon, it was established in the manga that she did, in fact, leave the message for Makoto as a sort of apology for framing him, which shows that even in the end, her intentions were at least good. And ultimately, Leon was still the one who killed her. It was a conscious decision that he made to kill her even after he broke her wrist. There are a number of reasons he could have done this, including that he could easily be framed for attempted murder if anyone asked about her wrist the next day, or the fact that Sayaka, though injured, could still potentially kill him with her good hand, but whatever the case, his murder of Sayaka wasn’t accidental. I definitely like Leon as a character more than I do Sayaka, but it isn’t fair that her reputation is as a cunning murderess when she wasn't even the one who ended up doing the murdering. 

This essay was short, and not as much of an analysis of her character than an actual defense, but I still did my best. As I said, Sayaka is a character I am completely neutral about, and furthermore, as she was one of the first to die and I haven’t read the manga (where her character may or may not be explored further), I don’t have much information to analyze anyhow. She didn’t have many FTEs, so I didn’t even have those to go off of. I still hope this was a decent enough defense. Again, if I got anything wrong, or there’s any character you’d like to see defended, I’d love to know in the comments.

And that concludes this essay. P.S. - did you know Sayaka has four official songs that have been released and are available to listen to on YouTube? My personal favourite is Monochrome Answer.


	4. Four - Toko Fukawa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the end of this chapter, I apologize for how it was written, but I should say it here, too - I had quite a bit of trouble with this chapter, which is why it's less than my best. However, I do plan to rewrite and re-publish it, probably when I finish Ultra Despair Girls.

**in defense of toko**  
As a fellow writer, romantic, and Byakuya fan, Toko Fukawa - the Ultimate Writing Prodigy - is certainly a character that I identify with. Initially, I only pitied her, then I grew to dislike her, but now she’s one of my favourite characters. A rather unfortunate pattern, isn’t it - that all of my favourite characters are the ones no one likes? But I digress, as I often do. Toko is a character who is easy to misinterpret and thus, easy to dislike, and, as always, while I don’t necessarily hope to change anyone’s opinion with this analysis, I hope it at least provides a better understanding of her character.

Obligatory spoiler warning for all of _Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc_ and potentially _Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls_ , as well as themes of death and murder, as well as slight mentions of abuse.

Unlike the other three characters I’ve defended in this series thus far, Toko makes it out of her killing game alive and even goes on to become the support character in a following game, so I have a lot of material to work with in her defense. I’ll let you all be the judges of how well I use it. One thing about Toko that’s very important to know about her character is all the trauma she suffered. Aside from the standard bullying and her lack of friends for most of her life, there is also her knowledge that her mother, whoever it was, wanted her dead since the day she was born, the time she was locked in a closet for three days with no food or water, and whatever unknown traumas caused her to develop a severe fear of blood and dislike - perhaps a even phobia - of bathing. All this trauma and adversity that she endured - as a child, no less! - led to her developing a split personality, Genocide Jack (also called Genocide Jill or Genocider Syo). It is also likely the source of Toko’s pessimistic outlook on life and apparent inferiority complex. Toko has a tendency not to trust people who say they mean well, and also to self-victimize. It can be understandably frustrating when your intentions are good and someone continuously assumes the worst of you, but it’s also important to consider that this is a result of past experiences wherein everyone who Toko trusted let her down. A boy she loved humiliated her, she was framed for theft and tied to playground equipment, another boy asked her out as a dare, so on and so forth. It seems a bit much, but after so many experiences it’s only natural to want to assume the worst of everyone, which is just what Toko does. Furthermore, her self-victimizing nature may be as a sort of distraction or defense from, or overcompensation for her own deep-seated insecurity (as in, pinning the blame on others keeps her from continually blaming herself for everything, even things that don’t need someone to blame at all). It would make sense - she’s so paranoid of others paying attention to her, and, by extension, judging her, that she mocks them and is rude to them so they don’t pay attention to her (which is rather counterintuitive, actually). Although, of course, this is just speculation.

Additionally, we’ve seen that Toko is capable of opening up and forming friendships, as she did slightly with Makoto Naegi, and much more with the latter’s sister, Komaru. In Toko’s FTEs, although she blames Makoto for a lot of her problems, including writer’s block and making her remember old trauma, she eventually calls him a friend for supporting her. She was also very supportive of Komaru in Ultra Despair Girls - while she teases her and gets frustrated with her for crying and giving up easily, Toko has clearly matured in terms of her outlook on certain things, begrudgingly crediting Makoto for her newfound hope.

One thing that is commonly used as a reason to hate Toko is her obsession with Byakuya Togami, and I’ve seen a lot of people claim that she’s the main reason that Togafuka (the ship between her and Byakuya) is toxic. However, that’s not entirely true. She is very creepy towards Byakuya, and takes his insults as genuine concern, doing _anything_ he asks to the point where he takes advantage of it and uses it to expose her as Genocide Jack. But Toko is not the only side of the relationship, and although Byakuya has reasons he acts the way he does towards Toko (which I’ll cover in my analysis/defense of him), he is incredibly rude and degrading, seeing her as nothing more than someone whom he can occasionally use to get what he wants. Furthermore, when Byakuya learns to respect people more by the end of THH and into UDG, this respect does not seem to extend to Toko as he continues to be borderline abusive towards her. Togafuka wouldn’t work no matter how you consider it, unless it was in an alternate universe story, but if you need an AU to make a ship work, was it really that good of a ship in the first place? Not to excuse her behaviour towards Byakuya, but I do think it’s important to recognize that she isn’t the sole reason that it would ultimately fail or else be seriously unhealthy.

There’s also the subject of Genocide Jack. Toko’s split personality, despite being a serial killer, never actually kills anyone over the course of the game and is mostly used for comic relief. However, she is _still a serial killer._ The murder of all those young men (usually young men who didn’t return her affections or even simply young men whom she considered to be attractive) is inexcusable, split personality or not. The fact that these crimes were comitted at all is pretty despicable; but at least _Toko_ dislikes this part of herself and likely feels remorse for the thing that Gen. Jack has done. However, again, Gen. Jack's behaviour is a result of severe and continuous trauma she faced as a child. And, in UDG, she has sworn not to kill anyone again. It’s true that it’s only (or at least mostly) because Byakuya requested it, but it was still a decision that she made to use Gen. Jack for the better. Gen. Jack is great as a character, but not necessarily as a representation of DID systems. She is still more positively regarded than “Miss Morose,” however. It’s not difficult to see why, although perhaps it should be considered concerning that a literal serial killer is being received better than her alter…

I guess I’m not one to talk, though, what with Korekiyo being one of my favourites.

Anyhow, that would conclude today’s analysis. I’m sorry if it was...subpar; for some reason I had a lot of trouble writing this chapter. Maybe it’s because I never finished UDG? Whatever, the reason, I plan to rewrite this chapter in the future...so it makes more sense. But thank you for reading this far!


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